Hot Rods Buying or building a utilitarian hot rod instead of buying new

Im with Saltflats, my 99 K2500 Burb with 454 is the way to go. I only use it to tow the race car and its the most awesome truck Ive ever had. I paid $2500 for the truck with 153k miles, serviced the AC and brakes and itll pass everything except a gas station. After a 7 hour tow, my back is not killing me like in the Dodge truck I replaced. The K2500 is like a Cesnna 206, itll haul whatever you can get in the cabin, great tow vehicle. Just MHO.

 

We went through this same dilemma back a decade ago when I retired. I had a company vehicle all the time, and it went away. My personal truck was a 25 year old Toyota 4x4, and I wanted to buy a newer Suburban. We weren't looking for brand new, but pretty new.
Looking around at fairly new Suburbans was disheartening, and didn't like them all that well either. But searching Craigslist one Sunday I discovered an old (not HAMB friendly) '69 Suburban. The price was stupid low, and it looked great! I called and we arranged to meet at 8:00 a.m. the next day. Gave it a test drive, and bought it. We both said we could spend $20k on it, and not come close to what a newer one cost. Put a bit over $1500 into it, and been driving it daily for the last 8 or 9 years now. I love it much more than I would a newer truck. That $1500 almost doubled what we paid for it! It's a very nice truck, but needed all new interior, and some wheels.

 

The 55 is my daily workhorse. Not at the moment,they are just putting to much salt out on the roads to take the 55 out , but once it´s a dry winter´s day the 55 is back on duty. Best DD- workhorse I ever had.

 

The GM Astro and Safari vans were very well made and came with a heavy duty suspension, V-8 Turbo 400 and a 12 bolt.. That made a real nice work horse van....

 

Personally, I’m an international truck guy when it comes to older trucks. These trucks never struggled to go down the road like the other trucks did. It always seemed like Chevy was over geared and underpowered and Ford had powerful engines like the FE and 385 but had 4.56 or 5.13 gears and would be lucky to do 60. The International seemed to be happy doing 65-70 with whatever you could throw behind it with a 266 or 304 engine. Now the problem with them is the doors will literally fall off the driver side. Matter of fact, this one has mcgyvered door hinges and the rear passenger door is screwed shut because I stole the door lock guts out of it for the front door. It rattles like crazy, the steering is absolutely horrible, but it runs and stops excellent. Matter of fact, I used it to go to town during a blizzard a few years ago to get plumbing parts because nothing else including my daily driver would either run or make it into town to get what I needed. I don’t use it much anymore because of the steering. The box is going out and I need to round up a 66-67 international steering column, a power steering pump that will fit the original 304 and convert it over to power steering by adapting a square body 4x4 steering box to it. That, and I’ve got two other projects which are my 56 Continental and my 75 airstream so this is on the back burner a while.

 

I know this isn’t hamb friendly but I absolutely love Ram trucks. This is a new 2020 towing my 1975 Airstream. It replaced a 2002 Dodge Ram 2500 that had 437,000 miles on it.

 

Keep in mind guys, I have a late model. I want to get something older to replace it. I get owning a brand new dually, but I can't see driving a house payment. I'm a debt free kinda guy. 1972 would be the newest model I would be interested in.